Brewed with the Saison and farmhouse ales of Belgium in mind, we added fresh Georgia peaches and Brettanomyces claussenii to a fresh white wine barrel and aged the Saison base for 9 months. Stretching the boundaries of the traditional style, we decided to put our own little spin on it.

A clean fragrant pleasant aroma of moderate strength. I really wanted some tart fruit or sourness from this. There's none of the nuanced white pepper or milky notes you'd expect in a good saison, and none of the notes you'd want in a sour.

No alcohol presence is noticeable.

T: Floral and fruity hop character. A backgrounded white wine tone is present and adds little; it doesn't even guide the beer or lend much cohesion, but rather distracts. Faint hay. Golden malts. Some biscuity and lightly funky brettanomyces yeast. No real sourness or tartness at all. Light peach fruit; it's not particularly evocative - it isn't juicy orchard fruit or anything. Has an unwelcome kiss of lychee. Sadly, there aren't any real barrel notes at all - no rich oak wood or anything.

Decently balanced, but certainly not gestalt. Fair complexity and decent subtlety. Average depth, duration, and intensity of flavour.

If they were shooting for a saison, they flat out missed the requisite subtlety, intricacy, and nuance. There's no white pepper, spice, or milky notes here at all. If they were shooting for a wild ale, they flat out missed the requisite sourness and the beneficial tart fruit.

Even the highlights here - the peach fruit and the brettanomyces yeast - feel like wasted potential. Subdued for a saison.

No alcohol comes through.

Mf: Lightly coarse - unnecessarily so. Wet. Somewhat refreshing. A bit overcarbonated. Decent body and thickness. There's nothing terrible here, but it just doesn't complement the flavour profile as well as it ought to. Gets the job done, but it doesn't feel custom-tailored specifically to the taste. Fair presence on the palate.

Not oily, harsh, astringent, gushed, hot, scratchy, or boozy.

I'd like the mouthfeel to be dry, juicy, and vaguely refreshing like an orchard fruit, but it falls well short.

Dr: Certainly drinkable, but at this price point it just isn't worth it. Frankly, the wine barrel aging isn't helping the base beer at all, and I figure that's probably what drove the price up in the first place. This is disappointing work from Goose Island, but only because it's priced unreasonably. It'd be fine at $8.99. It drinks like a good-but-not-great saison. Hides its ABV well. The peach notes in particular were disappointingly reticent. I'll easily kill this bottle alone, but I definitely wouldn't get it again, nor would I recommend it to friends.

As Goose Island continues to up their game in the sour arena, this abhorrently priced American "wild" ale employs Georgia peaches as its Belgian lambic inspirations show true form despite its gross misrepresentation on the label- it vague "farmhouse" moniker indicates nothing about its sour underpinnings.

But Halia opens with a glowing pour of golden and canary hues. Despite its mild yeasty haze, the beer simply seems to light up right there in the glass. As a dainty and delicate lacy sheet rises to cap the beer, its foam structures dissolve into a simple collar about its edge. Random and spotty lacing temporarily hangs on the glass before collapsing back into the beer. Its a common appearance where the beer's head character has been compromised by by its own acidity.

Mouthwatering aromas of tart fruit, dry cider, light vinegar and must fills the nose with olfactory-piercing intensity. As any short-lived sweetness contributes only a dry whole wheat type of breadiness and "Sweetheart" candies. But soon its lemon, lime, white grape and white wine acidity wafts over the nose; carrying with it the scent of musty, dried fruit, sea air, and a glimpse of damp hay.

To taste, that thin sweetness and breadiness only gives a lift to the fruit- giving it a modest ripeness before it trails. In its absence, the acidity has full control from the middle palate onward: minerally white wine, dried limes, crab apples, earthy brine and mild apple cider vinegar. Its dry and acidic taste is clean, sharp and palate-stripping. It shies away from the richer and earthier "funk" flavors of traditional lambics in its preference of cleanness and crispness. Its dry fruit taste only reveals any notions of peach as the ale finishes and echoes of its Georgia fruit return in aftertaste, accompanied by wheat.

Dry from start to finish, its early carbonation carries away any sweetness with ease- leaving only acidity to scrub the palate late. Mild alcohol warmth is wrapped into the acids and light barrel tannin with soft spice and powdery oak to finish.

Halia is a wonderful sour ale but misses an opportunity to express more earthen character. Though I like its expressive and clean acidity, it seems overly simplified. It would certainly provide a perfect counterpart to rich french reductions in entrees.

Halia is appropriately colored. It glows in its hazy peachiness with swirls of carbonation rushing to the surface. The head comes to a snap, crackling, pop a finger high and slowly fizzles to a chunky ring and island of foam. The ring is bolstered by the active carbonation and leaves patchy lacing in its wake.

The nose is enticing to say the least. The peach is soft but ripe and mingles well with a lactic yogurt quality. Fruit on the bottom. An intriguing minerality wafts from the glass that brings to mind wet stone. The yeast brings forth the mouthwatering orchard fruitiness so important in saisons. A soft peach sweetness rounds it all out with peripheral mustiness.

Halia is another Goose creation that manages to bring all sorts of components together into one happy, balanced, even handed beverine. Peach, both tart and sweet, gets things moving. orchard fruits flash through the middle along with that aforementioned minerality. The orchard fruitiness is bright and juicy. The swallow accentuates the tartness but it never exceeds approachable levels. Very good.

The body leans toward the lighter side of the spectrum, as a saison should. My only minor gripe is that the carbonation does quite have the frothiness of the best in style but it is lively. The tartness is soft but manages to invade every nook & cranny. I could drink mass quantities of this beer.

Halia is a damn fine beer. It's juicy, bright, and approachable to the point I can't see anyone disliking it whether into beer or not. Drinkability is absurdly high while there's enough tartness to make it totally refreshing. Recommended.

Bottle from Proof. Poured into a Goose Island wine-style glass. Slight haze to this beer. Color is like the skin of a lemon. Yellow/gold with a twinge of straw. Tons of bubbly white head that held about a minute before fading into a thinner head and medium collar. Lots of lacing. Aroma is like dry earth, faint barnyard funk, a healthy amount of peach is noticeable, but not at all overpowering. Taste is delightful: peachy farmhouse goodness. Dry/tart yeast. Earthy/floral hops. Simply divine. Nice high carbonation and medium-low body really make this fun to drink.